


Usual Routine

by AsheTarasovich (natalieashe), Boffin1710



Series: Moments of Life in the Shadows [59]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: 007 Fest, Angst, M/M, Mental Instability, Obsession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 01:14:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20055637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natalieashe/pseuds/AsheTarasovich, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boffin1710/pseuds/Boffin1710
Summary: Then I strip it down again.Put it back together again, and...Well... you get the picture...





	Usual Routine

**Alec...**

I check the parts carefully arranged on the desk. 

Straighten the slide. Move the spare magazine half an inch to the left. Touching my fingertip to each component of the stripped Walther, left to right, mentally reciting the parts like I learned in training all those years ago.

Finally satisfied that all parts are correct and clean, I reconstruct the gun and check it over meticulously.

Then I strip it down again.

Put it back together again, and...

Well... you get the picture...

Today it takes four repetitions for me to feel able to slide the gun into my shoulder holster and make it out of the hotel room. I take ten steps, before I have to return to check the door locked behind me. I know it did. I checked it three times before I walked away.

"006? It's past check-in. What kept you?"

Q is in my ear. His words are snippy, but his tone has a soft edge that I hate. He noticed the second-nature of a double-oh turn to ritual and then obsession long before I did. It makes me unreasonably angry at him, and intolerant of his sympathy.

But I can't lie to him. He is more than my Quartermaster, after all, and though his words are for the agent in me, his enquiry is for the lover. 

I risk my life far from him. I trust him to bring me home. 

But I can't rely on the tools of my trade to keep me safe. Not even if Q has checked them personally.

"Usual routine, Q," I say roughly. "Let's get this show on the road."

**Q…**

‘Usual routine’ I mutter to myself has become an issue. Every since Alec emerged from Medical after what is referred to as the ‘buggering Bailey incident’. 

I so regret not being the one in his ear on that mission. Being away at a security conference. Trusting someone else to kit him out and guide his mission. Of course it became an utter cock up. Equipment failure. Bad intel. Alex had to strip weapons off a dead opponent to fight his way out alive. Ended up being seriously injured and spending torturous (to hear Alec talk) time in Medical recovering. And of course… so typical double oh… we have avoided psych like the plague. This time though I am not sure that action was a good idea. 

It has come to the point that even I am concerned. His obsession with the need to double check, triple check…. It is not a good thing. The innate instinct for survival that agents possess is being overcome by his need to just one more time… something that out in the field could just very well be the one misstep that does not bring him back to home soil and to me. Hesitations are a thing that an agent cannot afford. One that will bring you back to home soil in a body bag. 

Somehow I have to find a way to help him work through this insane obsession. Find himself out in the field once more. 

I’ll give it just a few more days before I am afraid as Quartermaster, I’ll be forced to step in. He will not be happy at all when I call in Psych, but I may have no choice but to as he be pulled from the field for a tad. 

And as his partner, I hope he will forgive my actions if it comes to that very thing. 

  
  



End file.
